Wayfinder Access is a Symbian based GPS solution designed to be both accessible and to work with either the Talks, or MobileSpeak screen readers. In January, Wayfinder Systems quietly announced their intention to halt future development on the Wayfinder line of products. Wayfinder Systems itself was then acquired by the phone giant, Vodafone.

Many functions of Wayfinder Access depend on its ability to connect to an online server. licensing information is verified via this server and map data itself is generally retrieved on demand. If Wayfinder Systems, or I guess now Vodafone were to take these servers offline, the product would become useless. This is very frustrating to the many who use the product on a daily basis, or to people like me who frankly spent quite a bit of money purchasing what we were told was a “life time” license.

Exactly what can be done about this unfortunate situation is hard to say, however, Talknav, a Wayfinder Access dealer in the UK has created an online petition with the goal of raising awareness of howe termination of Wayfinder Access development will impact the blind and vision impaired community.

I really applaud Talknav’s initiative and urge people to take a look at the online petition, even if you don’t own Wayfinder products.